World News

Israeli supreme court orders destruction of illegal outposts

Posted
January 13, 2012 23:17:00

For years the Israeli governments have pledged to tear down illegal outposts. Now the country's supreme court has weighed in on the debate which could prove problematic for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

TRACY BOWDEN, PRESENTER: For years Israeli governments have pledged to tear down illegal outposts built on land that Palestinians want for their state.

Now the country's Supreme Court is demanding the government live up to its promise. But hardline coalition members are threatening instability if the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, gives the green light.

Michael Vincent reports.

(Images of protestors)

MICHAEL VINCENT: The destruction of outposts has for years been tearing at the heart of the Israel; its politics, its military and its identity. Israeli soldiers sworn to protect the people have been sent in to demolish their homes.

DANIEL HERSHKOWITZ, CABINET MINISTER: We're here because that's the promised land and the West Bank is part of the promised land. So that's the land of the Jewish people.

TALIA SASSON, OUTPOSTS REPORT AUTHOR: This is a very difficult issue in Israel. Maybe they could be afraid that it would reach the West Bank because maybe there will be a massive refusal of soldiers to remove outposts.

DROR ETKES, OUTPOSTS MONITOR: Well, if they want to change the law, that means that Israel will move, will be shifted automatically to official, I would say, some kind of an apartheid, an apartheid regime.

The Tallbaums (phonetic) used to be our across the street neighbours. They were very, very sweet people, very quiet, very modest, and you know, and now it's quiet. There used to be these little kids across the road and they're gone.

AVIELLA DEITCH, OUTPOST RESIDENT: In my wild defendant nightmares I would never fathomed how I live in a Jewish country and our own government came, they came in the middle of the night, about, it was past midnight, with no warning at all.

MICHAEL VINCENT: Aviella is an American born orthodox Jew. She has six children and at 39 is the second youngest woman in Migron. This outpost has 49 families with more than 200 children.

Now the Supreme Court of Israel has ruled that this land is owned by Palestinians. Aviella Deitch's home and those of her neighbours are illegal and must be demolished. It is a decision she does not accept.

AVIELLA DEITCH: Yes, it is the Supreme Court, but it brings it into question if the Supreme Court is actually an institution that I have to respect.

RESIDENT: It is about land. Settlements were not established in order to achieve security.

MICHAEL VINCENT: I have been on the tour through the West Bank with Draw Etcus (phonetic) a former Israeli paratrooper. He's now dedicated to monitoring the both of West Bank settlements.

DRAW ETCUS: They were established to begin with, from the very beginning, in order to allow Israelis to live all over what Israel considered to be the historical land of Israel.

MICHAEL VINCENT: From here we can see one, two, three, four, five, five, six settlements and outposts. They are all Israeli even though we're in the Palestinian territories, this is all Israelis settlements.

DRAW ETCUS: We are in the heart of the West Bank. We don't see a single Palestinian settlement here or community here.

MICHAEL VINCENT: It is the destruction of houses like this one here in Migron which is threatening to bring down the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. On one hand, he can't ignore the Supreme Court ruling that communities like this have to be destroyed.

But on the other hand, his right wing coalition is made up of members who've said if communities like this are not protected they will walk.

DANIEL HERSHKOWITZ: A big majority of the population in Israel does not approve the destructions of homes. I would find it very, very difficult to be a member in a government that destroys a settlement.

MICHAEL VINCENT: But Israeli governments since Ariel Sharon in 2005 have known this confrontation was inevitable.

Ariel Sharon commissioned and accepted a report which concluded that the 100 plus outposts are illegal.

TALIA SASSON: Michael, I could tell you on the map all the outposts you wanted to see, so you could see since here, all around the area of the West Bank.

MICHAEL VINCENT: For the report author Talia Sasson the issue is critical to Israeli Palestinian peace.

TALIA SASSON: Nobody is dealing with the West Bank. Nobody is dealing with a settlement issue but the outposts are growing and growing and the government invests their money and then in the end who would be able to remove anything from the West Bank?

There are about half a million settlers. To remove half a million settlers back to Israel, to give them houses, to give them jobs, to send their children to school, who would do that? Who is able to do that?

This is the problem.

MICHAEL VINCENT: Benjamin Netanyahu says he will respect the Supreme Court's ruling. And so it appears he will to go to an election and seek a new mandate to carry out the demolition of so many homes.